About Robert Stevenson (filmmaker)
Robert Edward Stevenson (31 March 1905 – 30 April 1986) was a British-American screenwriter and film director. After directing a number of British films, including King Solomon's Mines (1937), he was contracted by David O. Selznick and moved to Hollywood, but was loaned to other studios, directing Jane Eyre (1943). He directed 19 live-action films for The Walt Disney Company in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Stevenson has a long career as a filmmaker and is known for directing the musical fantasy Mary Poppins (1964), for which Julie Andrews won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Stevenson received a nomination for Best Director. His other Disney films include the first two Herbie films, The Love Bug (1968) and Herbie Rides Again (1974), as well as Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Three of his films featured English actor David Tomlinson. Having attended Shrewsbury School, Stevenson won a scholarship to study at St John's College, Cambridge. There he won the John Bernard Seely Prize for Aeronautics, and in 1927 graduated with a first-class MA (Cantab) degree in the Mechanical Sciences Tripos (engineering). Stevenson went into directing television and directed six episodes of the first season of Gunsmoke during which it first went to the top of the TV ratings.
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